Nick's Auto Advice Newsletter -  July 2010
 

		Current News - Repair and Consumer News and Views
		Nick's Tip of the Month -  Things you probably didn't know about cars and engines
		Just For Fun - Car Racing Games
		$$ Special of the Month $$

                Things you probably didn't know about cars and engines

» Warming up your car by letting it idle is bad for the engine

A cold engine wears much quicker than a hot one. In fact, your car’s engine may experience more wear during the first minute of operation than during the following hundred miles. By letting it idle when cold, the engine doesn’t get the opportunity to warm up quickly, increasing mechanical wear - it is even worse when the car's heater is on. Some cars’ operating instructions state that the car should not be left idling when cold – it should be started and driven immediately in the morning, to get it up to operating temperature as quickly as possible.
This may be less of an issue to someone driving a brand new leased car than to the owner of a priceless classic collectible.

» Lightning can't hurt you while inside your car - but not because the tires are made of rubber....

Firstly, tires are designed to conduct electricity so that they don’t build up a static charge when the car is moving. They have a high resistance but not enough to stop a lightning bolt in its tracks.

Secondly, if a lightning bolt traveled hundreds of meters to the car, it will simply jump from the rim to the road, so even a wooden tire wouldn’t have done the trick.

So why can’t lightning hurt you inside a car? Because the car’s metal body acts as a Farraday cage. Static electricity tends to spread itself evenly around the outer edges of a hollow metal enclosure, leaving the interior intact.

» Slipstreaming another car makes both cars faster

When a car moves through air, it encounters two types of air resistance. The front of the car has to push its way through the air, causing high air pressure. This takes up energy.

At the rear of the car the opposite happens. As the car moves forward, the tail end leaves in its wake a low pressure, holding the car back. This also takes up energy.

Now, if two cars are travelling very close to each other, the first car uses its energy to push through the air, whereas the second car uses its energy to drive out of the low air pressure behind it. In other words, the two cars share the air resistance and therefore have more energy at their disposal, making them faster.

» Without adjusting the ignition timing, racing fuel won’t give you more power

Advancing an engine's ignition timing is an effective way of increasing horsepower. However, too much timing advance will cause detonation and may mean the end to an expensive engine. When an engine runs on racing fuel, the ignition timing can be advanced more than with normal fuel because racing fuel burns faster, making detonation less likely. Simply adding racing fuel to an engine without adjusting the ignition timing accordingly will therefore yield no extra power.

Most modern cars have knock sensors, which means that it automatically adjusts the ignition timing to the maximum, to the point where detonation almost takes place. This makes modern engines very effective. When a car fitted with a knock sensor runs on racing fuel, it normally adjusts the ignition timing past the limits set by normal fuel, resulting in more horsepower than is possible with normal fuel.

» Wider tires don't really give you "more rubber on the road"

Motoring journalists frequently use the term "more rubber on the road" to describe the perceived benefits of wider tires. This is not technically true, of course. Contact patch area is a function of weight on the wheel and tire pressure. No matter what the width of the tire, as long as the pressure remains the same, there will be the same area of rubber on the road. In the case of a narrow tire it will be a square patch, and in the case of a fat (wide) tire, it will be an elongated patch of the same area.

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We hope you enjoyed this newsletter and found the tips helpful. Please call us with any questions or concerns about your vehicle
at 203-366-4775. You can email me directly at nick@nicksautomotive.com or request an appointment here.
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Servicing Your Car Care Needs
Nick Gramigna                                                                                                                       Back to Top